Pulling together a multi-agency effort to better handle domestic violence cases is no small task.
Sometimes even the improved tactics seem more like a Band-Aid than like stitches to heal a gaping wound, says Terry Parish, who heads up the domestic violence task force for the Pima County Sheriff’s Department.
For example, documents that list conditions of suspects’ release are still sorted by hand.
Case files do not differentiate domestic violence from other types of crimes, so deputies must sort through new files every day to find the ones that involve familial abuse.
Those domestic violence files are scanned into a Sheriff’s Department computer, entered into a database and shared with other law enforcement agencies.
Cooperation is growing, says Kent Burbank, director of Pima County Victim’s Services.
“We’ve been slowly adding new partners to our work,” he says.
As it stands, Pretrial Services evaluates each arrestee and conducts criminal history checks, then recommends to a judge whether suspects should remain in custody. The agency also supervises defendants who have been released to make sure they are following the conditions of release and to make sure they attend required court hearings.
Its workers use a uniform checklist to assess all offenders prior to release, whether they’re domestic violence defendants or not. But Parrish says he would like to see Pretrial Services approach domestic violence cases differently from other criminal cases.
A suspect in a burglary or drug case likely won’t reoffend against the same victim, Parish says. That isn’t the case with domestic violence, where the victim and suspect often live together. That creates problems in prosecuting cases.
“At the very least, the offender is going to start tampering with our witness,” Parish says. “We’d like to see (conditions of release) say, ‘no contact with the victim.’”
Domingo Corona, director of Pima County Pretrial Services, recognizes the system could use adjustments.
His agency is working with the Sheriff’s Department, Emerge Center Against Domestic Abuse, the County Attorney’s Office and Adult Probation to help ensure the court receives the best information possible before setting of release conditions in domestic violence cases, especially high risk cases involving intimate partners.
But not every instance of domestic violence is the same, he says.
“For example, if the domestic violence charge involves two individuals who are not intimate partners, do not live together and a victim who is not opposed to continued contact, the court may find that standard release conditions are appropriate,” he says.
Another issue is technology: As it stands, not all the agencies have access to the same databases and the same information.
Law enforcement, for example, has limited access to the conditions of release the court issues, which are held in a court database. The Sheriff’s Department receives the documents about once a day then sorts them by hand and scans them into its own database.
It’s labor intensive, Parish says, and presents a logistical challenge.
Even with issues like technology that still need to be addressed, Deputy Pima County Attorney Ellen Brown says progress has been made. Among defendants in sheriff’s department domestic violence cases, more are abiding by conditions of release and showing up for court appearances.
That’s a positive step in making sure abusers are brought to justice. She notes, for example, that some studies show a domestic violence victim might attempt to sever ties with an abusive partner seven times before making a final break.
And even if the criminal justice system doesn’t successfully prosecute a defendant, Brown says, if all the parts work together as they should, at least victim can trust that the system can protect them.
